The Birth of Blue Satan

by Patricia Wynn

  Gideon gave a sigh. “Well, I wish you would. I have no taste for eating alone. And I tell you again frankly, unless you wish to see me hanging from the gallows, you had better drop that mode of address. Lade’s suspicions are already aroused. He thinks he’s taken in a desperate pair of scoundrels, and he seems perfectly delighted by the notion.”

  “I think we should leave this place.”

  “We will do that if we can find a better one. For the moment, however, I don’t find either it or its staff so uncongenial as to make me wish to seek another retreat. I stopped in many a worse place during my three years on the Continent. The meat is good, and if the ale is decent, I propose to make this our headquarters until we find my father’s killer.”

  Tom started up. “Is that what you mean to do? Find the man and clear yourself?”

  “It is what I had intended to do before Sir Joshua paid his disagreeable visit. Are you with me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Then, let’s eat.”

  In the end, Tom condescended to take a trencher of meat into a corner, where he gratefully wolfed it down, but he would not sit at the table with his master. Gideon did not mind so long as he wasn’t alone.

  When he had finished, Tom insisted on standing by Gideon’s chair to serve as his footman. Then he went to rouse Lade and demanded to be shown the rooms. When he asked for clean sheets, Lade grumbled about the unnecessary work involved and would not comply, despite Tom’s attempts to bully him, until Tom advised him that he had better deliver them if he wanted to keep his well-heeled guest. He said that his master was used to all the comforts—and to paying for them neatly—so Lade had better act fast.

  As if by a miracle, then, two surprisingly clean sheets appeared. Tom’s liberal pledges of Gideon’s money had served far better than his threats. As the maid from downstairs—Katy her name was—said, as she leaned across the bed to make it up, Mr. Lade had lost a good piece of business when Mr. Jack had been taken up by the law. When Tom uttered a disapproving growl, she hastily assured him that no harm would come to his master at the Fox and Goose. Mr. Jack had been taken when a hue and cry had been set up after him on the “Lunnon road.”

  Tom listened in a fuming silence that would not be assuaged. The tempting sight of Katy’s round bottom as she bent to her work exacerbated his temper. He did not want to be in a place where his very soul was threatened, and it hurt him to see his master in such a low house.

  Later, as, feeling clumsy, he tried to arrange Gideon’s effects in the room, he told his master that a highwayman had been its previous tenant. “And that bed isn’t fit for nobody better. I make no doubt you’ll pass a sleepless night on them lumps.”

  “I doubt it.” Yawning, Gideon had already collapsed onto the bed with his boots still on. “It will take more than a few lumps to keep me awake tonight. If we remain for a while, I’ll send you into Maidstone to buy a better one.”

  Tom pulled off his master’s boots and set them aside to clean. Then he finished unpacking St. Mars’s portmanteau.

  “Master Gideon,” he said, after a few minutes’ thought, “how can you prove you’re innocent?”

  “We’ll talk about it in the morning.” St. Mars’s voice was hardly a mumble. “But for now you’ll have to wish me goodnight, Tom.”

  “Goodnight, my lord.”

  Tom waited in the chamber until St. Mars’s breathing seemed even. Then he covered him with a sheet and a pair of coarse woolen blankets. He didn’t have long to wait before Gideon was snoring as deeply as a man without a care in the world.

  Tom settled himself on his bed, leaving his own door ajar. He would hear if anyone tried to enter St. Mars’s room unawares. Nearly every night of his life since he’d become a groom, he had easily been awakened by sounds in the stables. Part of his job had been to see that no harm came to Lord Hawkhurst’s horses during the night. He had no fear that he would lose that watchfulness now.

  Not when he had so many things to worry about.

  In the morning, Tom went down to check on the horses before rousing St. Mars. He was pleasantly surprised to find Avis already tossing them hay. Tom unbent so far as to ruffle the boy’s blond hair and express his approval, before a near slip of his tongue sent him frowning back upstairs to find his master. He had almost been careless enough to suggest that the boy come to Rotherham Abbey if he ever wanted a position in one of the country’s best stables. A mistake like that could have cost St. Mars his life.

  He found Gideon dressed in a fresh lawn shirt and a pair of breeches, with his long, fair hair combed back into a queue and tied with a black ribbon. Someone, probably Katy, had delivered a bowl and pitcher to the room for his use. Tom breathed a sigh. He had feared Gideon might need him to act as his valet. Undoubtedly something would have to be done with his clothes, but Tom was grateful not to have to dress him.

  Finding himself in the inn this morning must have caused St. Mars a rude awakening, for he wore a grim look on his face. At the sound of Tom’s entry, he purposely squared his shoulders and wished him a good morning before leading him downstairs for his morning pint.

  Lade brought in the food and drink, obviously in a garrulous humour.

  As he set the tray down, he said, “Mornin’, gents. Mind if I asks ye, what’s the difference between an Orange and a Turnip?”

  Tom would have chased him off, but Gideon shook his head. “I’ll have to give up. I’m not much in the mood for riddles this morning,” he said.

  “Like is to like—as the devil said to the collier. Both are pernicious to England.” With a hearty guffaw at his joke, he left Tom to serve the meal.

  Gideon barely touched his meat or his beer. He remained lost in thought until Tom, uttering grumbles under his breath, threatened to clear his trencher away.

  Gideon gave a quick grimace into his tankard. “I wonder if any chocolate is to be found in this village. It would be more conducive to thought of a morning than my host’s fine ale. You must tell him to get me some from London.”

  “Yessir.”

  Tom was dismayed to see him sink into his musings again. Clearly, something was bothering him deeply.

  After a few more minutes of this, Tom grew frustrated and said loudly, “Sir, you said you would tell me this morning what we needed to do.”

  “I am afraid I have done quite enough already, Tom.”

  His shameful speech startled Tom. “You cannot blame yourself, Master Gideon. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Gideon threw him a grateful glance, but the corners of his mouth turned down. “You are wrong—though nothing can be altered by regret. There is no doubt in my mind that the argument I had with my father gave his killer the chance to assault him and to cover his crime.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Gideon pushed his chair back and, with characteristic impatience, started pacing the floor. “Whoever it was must have heard our row and decided to wait until I had left before using the fact of it to murder my father.”

  “Who could it have been?”

  As Gideon came to a halt in front of him, the furrow on his forehead deepened. “I don’t know, but I have an idea. I have been wondering why James Henry would be so willing to set Sir Joshua on me. I have asked myself what he stood to gain by killing my father and doing his best to implicate me. And the only thing I can conjecture is that he feared being discovered in an irregularity with his accounts.

  “He might have been stealing from the estate. My father trusted him implicitly. He was getting old. He might not have examined Henry’s ledger for some time.”

  “Do you truly think so?” Tom himself had never had an uncivil word from Mr. Henry, but it was true that Lord Hawkhurst had placed an unusual degree of confidence in him. “How will you find out if it’s true?”

  “By having a look at his ledger myself.”

  Tom felt an uneasiness stealing over him. “Have you taken leave of your senses . . . sir? Sir Joshua’ll have his men all over the Abbey.
If you try to go back, he’ll have you took up before you can say Jack Robinson.”

  Normally Tom would have been glad to hear St. Mars laugh, but not when his laughter came with that reckless gleam in his eye.

  “You were well named, most doubting Thomas. You might, however, not suspect me of being a complete fool. We will go after dark, and I know a safe way to get inside. If Sir Joshua has his men posted there, they will none of them be in my father’s closet where the money chest is kept, or in the chamber upstairs where my entry will be.”

  They went that night, long after sunset, and rode at a trot, weaving their way through the dark, hilly Weald on paths that drovers had made, cutting past fields of hops with their long wooden poles standing like soldiers with pikes, until the woods and the night enveloped them again in its ghostly air. Coming on Rotherham Abbey near midnight, they left their horses under the cover of a thick grove of trees and approached the ruins on foot.

  Tom had lived on Lord Hawkhurst’s estate for most of his life without learning that a secret entrance had been built into the house from the ruins of the original abbey. St. Mars led him through the familiar game park to the bottom of a hill below the main house, where a centuries-old bridge spanned a ditch that had once held a stream. The stream had long-since been diverted, but the arched set of stones that had carried the monks across it on their way to the neighbouring abbey, some twenty-five miles away, was still strong enough to bear any weight. They aimed for the southeastern corner of the old religious complex where a huddle of crumbled walls stood. If Tom had been asked earlier, he would have said that the monks lying buried there had slept undisturbed, but apparently in the last bloody century someone had ordered a passage to be carved into the hill.

  Squeezing past a barrier of tangled vines and caved-in stones, Gideon pushed his way into the ruins surrounding the abbey church. In this section, he had explained to Tom on their long ride down, the chief monastic buildings had stood apart from the abbey infirmary, the novices’ cloister, and the quarters for the aged monks. Most of the stones from those, the original chapter house, the refectory and storehouses had been taken and used to build the first Earl Hawkhurst’s manor on the site of the abbot’s house, but the rest had been left as an interesting bit of antiquity under its cover of trees and vines.

  Tom peered down into almost total darkness. He could make out nothing but the queer silent shapes of tumbled stones.

  The stables, kennels, and mews that supported the present house had fortunately been built on the other side of the house. Neither the horses nor the dogs could hear them from here, so they needn’t fear a ruckus.

  Safely out of sight of the house, Gideon withdrew a book of Congreve matches from his pocket and struck them a light. They had brought torches with them, and the instant flames revealed a set of worn stone steps leading down to a vaulted area below ground. In the days when the abbey had been filled with monks, this had been an undercroft. Now it was empty and remarkably free of dirt or refuse. Its cold stone flooring was probably too inhospitable for any beast to make it his home.

  In the silence behind him, Gideon could hear Tom’s wary tread and his gasping breath when without any preamble, he made his way across the floor towards a blackened opening in the wall.

  “You’re never going in there, my lord!” Tom whispered.

  The horror in his voice made Gideon turn to examine him with the help of his light. Square and dependable—but with his face shining with sweat even on this cold night—Tom appeared as white as the moon.

  “I have to go in. There’s a passage that leads underground and climbs a few hundred yards farther along to lead into the house. If you’ll come, you’ll see that it’s not so bad.”

  In a strangled voice, Tom blurted, “I can’t.”

  Gideon had never heard just that note of panic from him before. “It’s not haunted, you know—though I haven’t been inside it for years. The point was not to use it, you see, except in the case of direst necessity. I doubt, however, that it has been taken over either by bats or ghosts.”

  “You know I’m not afraid of any of them things, my lord.”

  “Do you think the roof will tumble down on you? You run a far greater danger of being arrested for consorting with me.”

  If possible, Tom’s face had grown even paler at this suggestion, but he stood his ground. “I’m not afraid of anything I can see. I just—I just never have liked—being in dark, little places.”

  His horror was obviously real, even if it was one Gideon did not share.

  “Very well. There’s really no need for you to go in, but I wanted you to see where the passage is, in case you ever need it. It might be better if you were to stand guard anyway. If someone should stumble upon us, you can cover my back.”

  Gideon turned and prepared to walk stooping through the passageway. “Keep your torch lit, and stay out of sight of the windows.”

  “When will you come back?”

  At the worry in his voice, Gideon smiled. “I can’t say how long it will take me to read Henry’s ledger. If you’d rather, you can wait outside.”

  Gideon stooped to pass through the low, dark passageway and felt his way forward on the irregular stone floors. Once inside, his torch cast a beam only a few steps in front of him into a dank, earth-smelling void that seemed to expand and contract with the movement of his light. The underground passage had been constructed over a walkway from the abbot’s house to the base court of the abbey. The walkway had sunk over the years, since the abbey had been built some 600 years before. The grounds about it had been filled in and gardens had been built over it, but whomever Gideon’s great-grandfather had hired to construct the passageway had known just where to look for it. All Cistercian abbeys had been built along the same plan, with an east-west passage linking the abbot with his church. The architect had only needed to dig for it and to build a long arch for a ceiling to protect any priest—or family member—who had a reason to flee Cromwell’s men.

  As far as Gideon knew, the passage had never been used, but there had been many a time when Cromwell’s Roundheads had struck terror into Kent on their way to sack Canterbury. He remembered the moment, on his eighth birthday, when his father had taken him up the stairs to show him the important secret, which he’d said must be preserved in case the Reverend Mr. Bramwell should ever find himself in danger from a resurgence of the religious violence.

  Gideon recalled the immense feeling of responsibility he had felt for keeping the secret. In all these years, he had divulged it to no one save for Tom now, no matter how great the temptation had been. Many times he had wanted to use the tunnel as a play place, but each time he had thought of revealing it, he had remembered his father’s stories of the Civil War, and he had contented himself with an occasional foray into it alone.

  Now he had told Thomas Barnes, who was as trustworthy as any man alive. Whatever happened to him, the secret would not die.

  He came to a place where the walls were coated with a sheen of moisture and knew that he was more than halfway along. The monks’ original watercourse had intersected the walkway here, flowing under it before resuming its journey to the mills. The stream had been re-routed to supply pastures farther from the house, but nature had obviously decided to leave some water behind.

  The air in the tunnel grew scarce as Gideon neared the house, so he was relieved to see the wooden door at the end. Before extinguishing his torch, he tried the latch and managed to open it after only a few jerks to scrape off the rust. Then he smothered his flame and, in total blackness, opened the door.

  He felt a slight but welcome flow of air from the staircase built inside the Abbey wall. Feeling with the toes of his boots, he scaled the tight spiral staircase, scraping his knees and hips on the stones with every step. Even with a thickness of a few feet, there was hardly room enough to squeeze himself up as he inched his way to the top. He had remembered the stairwell as bigger, but it was he who had been smaller the last time he had ventured
here. Prudently he advanced with a hand held high to avoid locating the next step with his head.

  His hand collided with a roof. For a moment, he listened for sounds, but nothing came from the other side of the panel. Hoping that the spring that moved it still worked, he pushed on the latch he located with his thumb.

  The panel sprang open. A surprising amount of light greeted him from a window near the bed. His eyes had grown accustomed to total darkness, so the moon glowing on the bed curtains shone nearly as bright as a beacon, making his errand all the easier.

  Gideon stepped out of the stairwell and closed the panel behind him, then quickly sat down on a chair to pull off his boots. Years ago, this tiny chamber had been furnished for a superior servant, but lately it had only been used when a visitor of rank required the space for a member of his retinue. It was seldom needed, and no one would be likely to come across his pair of boots while he padded about.

  The small chamber—hardly more than a closet—stood upon the first floor near the chapel gallery and the queen’s set of chambers. Gideon cracked open its only door, peered into the deserted rooms beyond and crept out.

  The great chest, which held his father’s money, had usually been kept in the London house, but since his father’s retirement from public life, it had been brought back here. Gideon knew he would have to cross the open gallery to the other side of the Abbey before he could search through it for James Henry’s ledger.

  The house—his house, though he had been made to feel an intruder in it—was as silent as his father’s grave. An empty air seemed to have settled over it. Gideon felt all the weight of his loss as he moved in stockinged feet through the warren of rooms which had been shrouded in ghostly holland sheets. Angrily he shook off the pall that threatened to overcome him. Action would be the only cure for his grief. He couldn’t afford to wallow in emotions.

  The gallery yawned before him, lit by a long row of leaded windows that faced the collection of portraits. Gideon’s ancestors, their friends, and monarchs who had figured in the family affections for generations watched as he passed. He needed no candle. Every nook and corner of this place was as familiar to him as his own face. He even knew which squeaking boards to skirt.